


The Time of the Comet

by uumuu



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Cunnilingus, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/F, Grief/Mourning, Starting Over
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-22
Updated: 2015-10-22
Packaged: 2018-04-27 14:26:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5051941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uumuu/pseuds/uumuu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the War of Wrath, Curufin's wife and her lover have only each other to rely on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Time of the Comet

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lunarium](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunarium/gifts).



> Beta read by the wonderful amyfortuna.

Lalith stood just out of the forest, immobile, under a gentle but steady rain. It had been raining for several days now. The smell of wet earth filled the air, washing away the stench of battle and destruction. The sky was slate-dark, but the setting sun cast fiery darts through the oppressive murkiness every once in a while.

Hwestu left the cover of the trees, gliding noiselessly through the shrubbery. Her father's teachings and an all-too-early developed instinct for survival had ingrained stealth in her. She stopped at some distance, waiting, and stared at Lalith's back. Amon Ereb stood out against the horizon beyond her, though the top with the ruins of the fortress was hidden by low-hanging clouds. 

When she judged enough time to have passed, she purposefully stepped on a withered branch.

Lalith startled, but quickly caught herself. Her right hand, wrapped around the hilt of her short sword, flexed and tensed again. 

“I never-...” she began, recognising Hwestu by the cadence of her breathing as she came nearer. “I never thought I'd miss him-... _them_ this much. And yet, here I am, feeling as if all my limbs had been cut from me, and I could no longer move or had any reason to.”

Hwestu walked until she was standing behind Lalith and their bodies almost touched. Her arms reached out, wrapped around Lalith's waist, feeling the shape of her hips under the layers of wet clothing. 

“I hoped, foolishly _hoped_ I would at least see his wish fulfilled.” She gave a choking sob which wracked her whole body. “I will never see him again.” 

Hwestu's heart leapt in her chest at those words. She drew Lalith closer, pressing her cheek to the back of her head. She hadn't particularly liked Lalith's husband – or she envied him too much to like him – and she couldn't share her grief. She had a place she didn't want to lose, now. After a life lived with nothing to hold on to, she had gained from war and death a treasure greater than she had ever dared hope. 

Her father's people believed that the stars would all fall down from the sky at the breaking of the world, hurtle to the ground in a trail of white fire. She had found the belief to be correct, but imprecise. Lalith was a star which had fallen into her arms, tumbling through defeats and useless victories, and which she wanted to keep even after the world had fallen apart.

She was caught off guard when Lalith wrested herself from her hold and turned, slowly at first, then abruptly shoved her back. A flash of steel, and the tip of Lalith's sword pressed under her neck. 

“I could kill you now and be done with everything,” she said, her eyes, usually so sharp, so lively, now bulging with the feverishness of stark despair.

Hwestu felt a keen tremor, and it was not of fear. “If you will,” she shrugged, staring at Lalith's face as the rain washed over her dusky skin and black hair. “I will stay with you, regardless.”

A shaft of sunlight pierced through the clouds. Lalith tilted her head up for a moment, as if she saw it for the first time, or as if she were surprised it was still there. As she looked back down again, rain dripped over her eyelids in place of tears.

When they had first met, on the slopes of Amon Ereb, after flames scattered the Ñoldor in North, Hwestu had fancied she could drink light from those luminous steel-like eyes like the nectar from the maple-trees. It had been a happy fortuity, for Lalith to become separated from her husband and son in the war, and end up at her side. It had been the shadowy path of the star's downfall. 

“For my sake?” Lalith said. 

Hwestu nodded, not caring that her skin was pricked by the sword-tip.

Her left hand grasped Lalith's wrist. She held the sword in place and grazed her neck on it, from left to right, drawing a line of red on it. 

“I told you when we first met, did I not? That I would bear your sins, your pain, your sadness in your stead.”

Lalith lowered the sword as soon as Hwestu let go of her wrist. She sheathed it again, the mere sound of the metal grazing against the scabbard bringing back memories. 

“What of your burdens?” she asked.

“They are made lighter,” Hwestu said without hesitation. 

Lalith gazed straight into her eyes.

Hwestu was still a little uncomfortable with that. Her eyes weren't regular eyes. Her left was the colour of wet clay, the right a pale green. Those eyes had been her scourge, because the Elves of Middle-Earth were wary of any oddity in appearance. Physical anomalies were a sign of something going wrong, of the Dark One insinuating himself among them, and Hwestu had been born too soon after the first attack of the orcs in East Beleriand, while the inhabitants of Ossiriand still reeled from the losses. Her mother stole out the forest, choosing to leave everything behind. Hwestu barely remembered her. Her father brought her up on his own, but all his care and authority hadn't been enough to keep her from suffering.

Lalith sighed before Hwestu could lose herself in those memories. Hwestu shook herself and hugged her, and Lalith yielded to her when she kissed her fiercely on the mouth. 

They went back inside the forest, to where the treetops were so thick that neither light nor rain could pierce through, and the air was always humid, even stale. 

The encampment was almost entirely asleep. One of the guards which kept watch more out of routine than out of any real need to – a young orphaned Ñoldo – nodded to Hwestu, relieved to see that their only remaining leaders were safe. There were few makeshift huts left. Many of the Lindi had already moved on, left Beleriand to look for a new place to settle in. Some had expressed a wish to return to the never-forgotten forests of the East. A few of the Ñoldor had likewise moved on to a fate of their own soon after Maedhros and Maglor's departure. Hwestu's own group, a mix of Hwenti, Lindi and the odd loner from one of the other clans all remained. They never had a home to begin with.

Hwestu and Lalith stopped next to a hut hidden behind a large oak tree. Hwestu undressed Lalith and herself, and hung the drenched clothes – furs and worn-out leathers – on one of the lower branches.

Inside the hut, Hwestu guided Lalith to sit down on the straw matting which made up the floor, and patted her dry with the large cloth that served both as a blanket and as a towel at need, wishing all the while that she could have rid her of sorrow and of longing in the same manner. 

When she was done, Lalith took the cloth from her, sweeping it over her upper body and her blond hair. Hwestu's hair was a peculiar colour for a half-Linda half-Hwenta with her features, and whose parents had been both dark-haired. Lalith liked that hue. Her father, she said, had a similar hair colour, but she herself had taken entirely after her mother, a full-blooded Tatya like Hwestu's father. 

A small satisfied smile, an almost childish smile, played across Hwestu's face while Lalith patted and combed her hair back down, and she smiled again as she pushed Lalith onto the mats. 

Her battle-worn hands glided down her sides, and gently parted her legs. She knelt between them, and bent to bury her head in Lalith's crotch. She dropped a swift kiss to the hood of her clit, while her fingers circled her folds before slipping between them. She moved them up and down, murmuring words of love and devotion that sent sweet puffs of air over Lalith's skin.

Lalith was quickly roused, and wetness made it easier for Hwestu's fingers to slide along her quim. She lavished slow, gentle licks to her clit, knowing well by then the most sensitive spots of Lalith's body, all its little quirks, and taking particular care to flick the tip of her tongue against the tiny stud which pierced her hood.

Lalith whimpered, and the longer Hwestu pleasured her – the bolder her mouth and tongue became – the more she let herself go, her hips lifting with tiny jerks, her chest rising and falling erratically. 

Hwestu raised her head for a moment, licked her lips, and lightly nipped at Lalith's folds. Lalith gave a small yelp in protest. 

“Sorry,” Hwestu whispered playfully. She pulled the hood of Lalith's clit back with her thumb, and licked the fully exposed nub, then sealed her lips around it and sucked it into her mouth with utter abandon.

Her other hand massaged the inside of Lalith's thighs, shifting after a while to brush her entrance with her knuckles, dragging them down to her asshole and back up again.

Lalith began to keen softly, and when she came Hwestu was quick to lick the liquid which poured out of her, scooping it all into her mouth with her tongue.

She lay next to Lalith, throwing one leg and one arm around her, protectively and to soothe her. 

“Thank you,” Lalith said.

Her hand came to rest over Hwestu's hip, quickly trailing down her side and between her legs. Her touch was simple but effective, pressing on the hood of her clit with her thumb, while her other fingers brushed between her folds. Hwestu rubbed herself against them, and she too found release.

After that there was nothing between them but snugness and repose. 

“We will find a place to live...far from the sea, the Valar and everybody else,” Hwestu softly said, when they were both already falling into sleep, “we will make ourselves a home.” 

“A home,” Lalith echoed.

Hwestu nodded. “In sadness, but in hope too, for us both.”

**Author's Note:**

> I tried making up a 'Hwentian' name – Hwestu is based off Quenya quessë = 'feather' (with dissimilation of two consecutive s's and feminine ending in -u, changes arbitrarily lifted from Germanic languages). Lalith should likewise be Curufin's wife's name in Hwestu's own tongue, meaning 'elm'(+female ending), which would be Lalmien in Quenya and Lalveth in Sindarin.
> 
> Linda-Lindi is the native name (singular & plural) of the Green Elves.
> 
> I wanted to make Hwestu as unique as possible, so on top of being odd-eyed, I also imagine her as a blond Asian (there are blondes among the Hmong people, for example). Curufin's wife instead looks like [this](http://www.fashioncentral.pk/people-parties/events/exhibitions/story-435-bio-natural-black-shine-carnival-de-couture/gallery/59/) to me.


End file.
